Tag: yan

How popular is the baby name Yan in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, see baby names similar to Yan and check out all the blog posts that mention the name Yan.

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That’s the first time I’ve ever seen Petrichor used as a baby name! Petrichor is that pleasant, earthy scent associated with rainfall. The word was coined by Australian scientists in the ’60s by combining the ancient Greek words petra (“stone”) and ichor (the fluid that flowed in the veins of the gods).

I wonder if there’s any chance that Petrichor will become a trendy nature name one day. What do you think?

In 2009, a man in Shandong, China, tried to name his baby girl “Bei Yan Yun Yi.”

But the name — an extra-long first name with no surname — was considered too unusual, so it was rejected by officials.

The father filed a lawsuit in December of 2009. Last April, he finally got his day in court.

[He] said his daughter’s name was poetic: Bei (meaning north) was chosen because Shandong is in the north of China; Yan (wild goose) and Yun (cloud) are words frequently used in poetry; and Yi was a character from China’s first collection of poetry, the Shijing.

My source article said that a judgement on the case would be “passed in a few days,” but it’s been more than eight months and I haven’t seen any updates, so I’m not sure what the outcome was.

The article did mention the outcome of an earlier name-related court case, though:

A similar case occurred in 2009 after parents in east China’s Jiangxi Province named their son Zhao C, with the English letter “C” as his given name. A court ruled they must change his name.

According to data from Malta’s National Statistics Office, the most popular name-groups in Malta in 2014 were Elena/Elenia/Helena/Ella and Luke/Luca/Lucas.

Here are Malta’s top 10 girl and boy name-groups of 2014:

Girl Names

Boy Names

Elena/Elenia/Helena/Ella, 97 baby girls

Julia/Yulia/Julianne, 72

Emma/Emmanuela/Ema, 70

Eliza/Elisa/Elizabeth/Elise, 69

Catherine/Katrina/Kate/Katya, 46

Maya/Mia/Myah, 44

Lea/Leah/Leia, 42

Emilia/Emily/Emelie, 41

Amy/Aimee, 39

Maria/Marija/Mariah/Marie, 37 [tie]

Anna/Hannah/Ann, 37 [tie]

Luke/Luca/Lucas, 98 baby boys

Matthew/Matthias/Matteo, 97

Jacob/Jake, 77

Zachary/Zak/Zack, 59

Michael/Miguel/Mikhail, 53

Liam/William, 51 [tie]

John/Jean/Jonathan/Juan/Gan, 51 [tie]

Benjamin/Ben, 51

Kaiden/Kayden/Kai ,46 [tie]

Alexander/Alessandro/Alec, 46 [tie]

Andrew/Andreas/Andre/Andy, 45

Joseph/Beppe/Giuseppe/Josef, 40

Down in 15th place on the boys’ side is “Yannick/Yan” — both are versions of John, and yet they’re not part of the John group, which is tied for 6th.

Speaking of strange things…

The current Maltese birth registration system does not allow for Maltese fonts, which essentially means that names with ċ such as Ċikku or Ċensa; with a ġ such as Ġorġ or Ġanna; and with a ż such as Liża or Ġużi, are out – or at least will be recorded without the essential dots which distinguish the Maltese phonetical sound.

I’ve seen governments (e.g., NWT, California) make excuses about not being able to render minority/ethnic names properly on birth certificates, but I’ve never heard of a country that couldn’t render names from its own national language.

The 98 baby girls of the Eliza/Lisa/Elsie/Elyse/Bettina group represent 4.8% of all baby girls born in Malta in 2012, and the 101 baby boys of the Matthew/Matthias/Matteo group represent 4.6% of all baby boys.

I have three earlier Malta lists (2006, 2007, 2009) here at NBN, but there are even more (2002 through 2012, inclusive) at the NSO website — use the link below.